Vandalic
General information Vandalic constitutes the surviving Romance speech of the North Africa based Vandal Kingdom. It is a Western Romance language, influenced strongly by Punic and other Afro-Asiatic languages spoken in the region. Phonology Historical phonology It was noted early on in the late Roman Empire that the Latin of North Africa was strongly innovating. Augustine of Hippo observed that his Latin speaking contemporaries in Africa paid no heed to the shortness or length of Latin vowels."Afrae aures de correptione vocalium vel productione non iudicant". De doctrina christiana, Lib.IV, C.10 Graffiti from the period contain broad departures from classical orthographical norms; in several inscriptions the form oze appears for Latin hodie. Consonants Vowels Vandalic native words distinguish between four primary vowels: /a e i u/. Vowel length is not phonemic; vowels are long in open syllables and short in checked, with the exception of /e/. The language is syllable-timed rather than stress-timed. One diphthong exists, /au/. Note that the vowel /e/ is always pronounced long, as if it were a diphthong; it represents proto-Vandalic /ai/: mema "seawater" represents *''maima''; exa "wife" represents *''ai.ʃa''. 'O' does not exist in native words; when borrowed, it is usually realized as /u/. Alphabet The spelling of Vandalic is strongly phonemic and regular. Phonotactics The stressed syllable in Vandalic is very regular. Multisyllabic words that end in a vowel are stressed on the next to last syllable. Multisyllabic words that end in a consonant are stressed on the last syllable. The vowel e'' is an exception to this rule; ''e can only appear in a stressed syllable, so it always draws the stress accent whenever it appears. Grammar Nouns The grammatical cases of Latin have generally been lost, as they have been in all the other Western Romance languages. On the other hand, it inflects nouns for number, possessed status, and indefinite status. Adjectives agree in gender and number with their nouns. Vandalic nouns are either masculine or feminine. As in other Western romance languages, the masculine gender contains the Latin neuters as well as the masculine nouns. Most words borrowed into Vandalic become masculine. Vandalic nouns have five declensions, each of which will be obvious from the citation form. They are: * The first declension, with nouns ending in ''-a''. These tend to be uniformly feminine. * The second declension, with nouns ending in ''-u''. These tend to be uniformly masculine. * The third declension, with nouns ending in ''-i'' or -''e''. These may be of either gender. Nouns in ''-e'' exhibit a number of irregularities. * The fourth declension, with nouns ending in ''-θ''. These are all feminines. * The fifth declension, with nouns ending in a consonant other than ''-θ''. These may be of either gender. 'Gender and number' The gender of most Vandalic nouns is apparent from their citation form. Masculine nouns take the definite article a'', or ''al if the noun begins with a vowel: a xvalu /a ʃva.lu/ "the horse"; al ilu /al i.lu/ "the god". If this article follows a vowel, it takes the form ha /ʔa/. Feminine nouns take the definite article ya: ya xvala /ja ʃva.la/ "the mare"; ya ilaθ /ja i.laθ/ "the goddess". All of the three vowel declensions take a plural in ''-s''. In the two consonant declensions, the plural is almost always ''-is''. The definite article in the plural is always a'': ''a xvalus "the horses\", a xvalas "the mares", a taliθis "the girls" a agafis "the wings". Nouns in ''-e'' have plurals in ''-as'': a pile "the cap" > a pilas. 'The genitive construction' The genitive inflection of Vandalic is essentially a possessed, rather than a possessive case. The marked form is the possessed noun rather than the possessor. Where Latin says equus patri, "the father's horse", Vandalic marks the horse rather than the father: xval a patxu (horse-POSSESSED the father), "the horse of the father". The possessor always takes a definite article in the construction, even if it is a personal name: xval a Piθru "Peter's horse". The possessed form never takes a definite article. Rules for the formation of the possessed case are as follows: In the first declension, drop the ''-a'': :exa "wife" > ex: ex a bahalu /eːʃ a ba.ʔa.lu/ "the husband's wife". In the second declension, drop the ''-u'': :xvalu > xval: xval a Piθru /ʃval a pi.θʁu/ "Peter's horse''. In the third declensionm, drop ''-i''. For the few nouns in ''-e'', turn that to ''-a'': :dinti > dint; dint ya xvala /dint ja ʃva.la/ "the mare's tooth". :pile > pila; pila ya duzint /pi.la ja du.zint/ "the professor's (f) cap". In the fourth declension, change ''-θ'' to ''-t'': :beθ "house" > bet; bet ya exa /be:t ja e:ʃa/ "the wife's house" In the fifth declension, no change: :sul "sun" > sul: sul a planiθi /sul a pla.ni.θi/ "the planet's sun". Note also that the construction can be used with infinitives as a verbal noun. The infinitive takes a definite article when used in this construction as well: :xval a yagaz /ʃval a ja.gaʒ/ "a horse for hunting". 'The indefinite construction' Ziyam i uzi - "One of these days, and in fact, today." The indefinite construction affects the first, second, and third declensions of nouns. Vandalic allows three levels of definiteness. The first is definite, a noun appears with the definite articles a'' (m. sing, all plurals) or ''ya (f. sing). The definite article conveys less syntactical information than in some other Romance language. The first level of indefiniteness is defined by the absence of the definite article. Since the definite article is required by syntax in some constructions, it is not always available. The second level of indefiniteness is the inflected indefinite. In all of the vowel stems, the first, second, and third declensions, it is inflected the same way: by adding ''-m'' to the vowel stem. It can appear with the definite article and keep indefinite meanings, and will appear with the article when required by syntax. The meaning of the suffix is somewhat stronger than an English definite, and is often best translated as "some kind of" or "a ____ of some sort or another". *''(ya) ziyam'' - "some day" *''(a) xvalum'' - "some kind of horse" *''(ya) nuttim'' - "one of these nights" Plural potentiality is indicated by the suffix itself, and nouns so modified generally do not take plurals. One exception is pirsunu, "person", which distinguishes a singular pirsunum "someone or another" and pirsunumis "some people". Verbs 'Regular verbs: first conjugation' 'Regular verbs: second conjugation' Syntax Vocabulary }]]}}}}}} }} No. English |;}}}} |true}} | | +1}}}}}} +1}}}} |;}}}} }} | ||true}} | ;| }} +1}}}} }} }} 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 Example text Pirqi Ilu a mundu tantu amau, q'si a Banu su dunau, al unighiniθu, affini s' ci qiqunc criθinti innilu ni halaqira nuskam, me avira ulam ya viθa. /piʁ.ki i.lu a mun.du tan.tu a.mau, ksi a ba.nu su du.nau al u.ni.ɣi.ni.θu, a.fi.ni.sʧi ki.kuŋk kʁi.ðin.ti i.ni.lu ni ʔa.la.ki.ʁa nus.kam, me: a.vi.ʁa u.lam ja vi.ða/ Category:Romance conlangs Category:Languages